


40-day Erotica Challenge

by Lilly_White



Category: Crisis Core - Fandom, Final Fantasy VII, final fantasy vii compilation
Genre: F/F, F/M, Lots of Sex, M/M, Multi, Threesomes, rare pairs, sometimes in continuity, sometimes not
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-19
Updated: 2016-07-19
Packaged: 2018-07-25 09:47:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7527976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilly_White/pseuds/Lilly_White
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of standalone, erotic short stories in various points in the FF7 timeline. Each story will include a proper context exploring FF7's lore, so that it isn't just mindless porn. But, there will still be porn. Lots of porn. And lots of different pairings - suggestions welcome!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Day One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: After work drinks  
> Pairing(s): Tifa/Aeris  
> Timeline: Post-CC, pre-FF7

It was a Costa Del Sol night, meaning that Tifa had had to replace her usual playlists by a mix of foreign songs in a language she vaguely remembered touching upon in school – Spainish? Spanian? Something like that, no one could be sure after the Midgarian bill to internationally cancel funding to language programs in schools. But even without understanding the melancolical syllables and rolling ‘r’s, you could still hear the sun and the sand and yellow-pink skies in the melodies. She loved organizing nights like these in her bar, because it attracted crowds from all Sectors who wore their hair differently and brought dashes of red and sky blue into the bar, loud laughter and fast-paced accents bouncing off of her walls.

She’d called in a flowergirl that she’d heard of; most businesses down here worked on a word-of-mouth basis, so she’d just gotten a number and a name. She’d asked for exotica and the girl had arrived while she was still preparing her stock, wedging these giant flamboyant bouquets among her endless stacks of juice and tonics. The two girls hadn’t had enough time to talk while Tifa prepared – they had just managed to sustain a shouted conversation as they tweaked things from opposite sides of the bar. It wasn’t a big place but there was a lot to do and Tifa had never had the funds to hire any staff to help. And this girl had offered to come early to help, so whatever her opinions on anything that Tifa held dear, ecology or Midgarian politics, that was already more than enough to make her love her.

People were still trickling in with the CLOSED sign still hooked on the front door, regulars who would sweet talk their way in, you know me, come on, I’ll tip you if you get me a drink early love, yeah alright alright alright just sit your arse down and don’t give me any trouble. The Costa del Sol music was at a pre-midnight volume and she was already getting headaches, though the sweet flowery perfumes emanating from every corner took the edge of slightly.

While she restocked the little fridges behind the bar, the flowergirl came around to stick flowers in between the pumps. Tifa looked up instinctively when the girl’s legs brushed against her back – and then let herself really look at the girl from where she was crouching, as she hadn’t had the luxury to do so before. Difficult to look at someone who’s crumbling under a mountain of petals and sticky-outy pollen antennae things, whatever they were called.

The girl had long willowy legs made apparent by the side-slits in her dress, which was midnight blue and covered in silver pearls, emulating a night sky. It hugged her body so intimately that Tifa’s mouth went dry as her eyes roamed up the girl’s lower back, curved inwards as it was, all the way up the ridge of her spine and up to her neck. The dress had a Wutain design, covering cleavage and neck, and yet sleeveless with side slits practically up to the hips so that her milky white thighs kept appearing and disappearing. There were petals and smears of red pollen all over fabric and bare skin, but it looked artful and deliberate, like tattoos or patterns. It made Tifa want to rub the pollen spots off. She looked higher still – the girl’s hair was up in a thick bun, a few long wisps escaping and curling down around her shoulder blades. The shapes her body made when she moved were so delicate, like she was made of glass, posing as she leaned over the counter with one foot popping up.

Tifa looked away, concentrating on the tonics she was restocking. This was one of the other reasons why she didn’t hire bar staff – nights were long, and mistakes very easy to make.

When she opened the door to flip the Closed sign to Open, there was a crowd waiting outside, and she gulped as she anticipated them all pouring in. They were respectful enough about picking tables and going out to smoke enough times for the bar floor to breathe a little. But the Costa music was so catchy and enticing that soon the floor was covered in dancing bodies, and Tifa found herself winding between bodies to get glasses and scuttling around with her dustpan and brush to sweep up broken glass from between people’s feet. The flowergirl’s duties had only been decorative, that’s all that Tifa had paid her for, but after about half an hour since opening time she saw the girl coming back from the staff room, wiping her hands on her dress, her face flushed but smiling.

‘You need help,’ the girl said, and Tifa shook her head.

‘Babe, it’s fine, I’ve handled worse,’ Tifa told her. There were about five people leaning over the bar, gil notes crumpled in their hands, so Tifa turned her body away in a signal that she couldn’t really stay and chat. ‘You go on now. I can’t pay for you to stay.’

‘Hey, I’m happy to help,’ the girl said, and Tifa watched as she sidled over to the tables, eeling her way through the dancing crowd. Tifa served the people their cocktails in martini glasses and fresh pints, and when she turned to the dishwasher she found it humming, all of the dirty glasses having vanished inside it. She looked up to see the girl’s pink bow flashing between people’s heads as the girl went on with her glass-picking mission. Tifa smiled. There was a weight in her chest as she anticipated trouble, the expectation of pay when she certainly couldn’t afford it, but the girl had such a nice, honest smile… hopefully it would be all right.

As the night progressed, people would shout compliments at her over the bar, tease her whenever she came up to tables, cop a feel when she had to push through the crowds. She just gritted her teeth like always and bore it. Part of her publicity was her own style, and she had to deal with the consequences. Didn’t mean it wasn’t fucking irritating. She would walk around the floor breaking up couples that got too touchy-feely in the darker corners, too. Slum authorities very predictably loved to crack down on breaches in venue licenses for the smallest, most ridiculous reasons, so even if her cameras didn’t pick up on much in this lighting, she would protect her license like it was her kid. No sex on the premises while the bar was open, and especially not including her.

Midnight came and went, and she was worried that the flowergirl might be getting the same treatment as she was as the crowd became more and more packed. The two girls only exchanged words when they bumped into each other at the bar, the flowergirl even more flushed than before with her strands of hair sticking to her forehead and cheeks. Tifa would ask her if she was all right, the girl would say yes, yes, nothing to worry about. Tifa would insist, if anyone annoys you, just tell me and I’ll kick them out, ok? And the girl would smile and say don’t worry, I’ve been through Sector 7 plenty, I’m as used to it as you are. Tifa watched her anyway whenever the girl was in her line of sight, and sure enough, she had a way of smiling and removing any inappropriate hands or ending inappropriate dialogues with a quip and a tap on the wrist, as though scolding a child. Clearly it worked, even if it was flirtatious, because the customers would just greet her like another of their friends and raise their drinks in her direction whenever she went past again. It was a far more elegant way of dealing with the harassment than Tifa had found, but then again, it wasn’t like the girl worked here every single night either. It took too much energy to smile at idiots to keep it up for very long.

There were a few incidents; the first one was a fight between two male customers, which Tifa had to break up, pulling them away from one another and throwing them both out so hard that they folded right over the outdoor railings. She had come back into the bar, hailed by her customers who doubtlessly had heard of her reputation, and were glad to see it in action. The flowergirl had bouquets of dirty martini glasses in each hand, forearms full of soap as she sponged away the sugar before putting them in the washer, but she’d been staring right at Tifa as she came in. Her cheeks went even redder when she realized Tifa was watching, and Tifa smiled as the girl promptly disappeared behind the counter to tend to the washer.

The second incident was somebody vomiting in the toilets, which Tifa sadly wasn’t new to. Tifa asked the girl to tend the bar as she mopped it up, glad to not have to multitask with something as gross as this. When she got back, the girl had a list of questions about drinks she had to restock, and Tifa went to open the appropriate cupboards and fridges. The girl kissed her on the cheek as she took three champagne bottles from Tifa, and zoomed off before she could notice how red Tifa’s own cheeks had gotten.

The third one was when a creepy old guy, because there are plenty of them after midnight, groped the flowergirl with a hand right up one of the slits in her dress. The girl tried to smile it off but the guy was insistent, pulling her down to sit on his lap, and Tifa felt her blood boiling as she watched it happen from the bar, stirring her cocktail order a little too hard. When the girl looked like she couldn’t get out, face gone pale and not even a hint of a smile to be seen, Tifa put down her shaker and wrenched her way through the crowd.  
The girl was pushing against the guy’s chest while he fondled her, one hand up her dress, the other around her body so that he had clamped her against him while squeezing one of her breasts. Tifa looked at where those hands were and for a bewildering moment, felt a surge of heat in her lower regions as she imagined doing those things to the girl herself. Then the momentary madness dispelled, and she saw red instead. She scraped her nails down the guy’s arms, pulled the girl away as his grip weakened with surprise pain. After that, the guy would sustain permanent memory loss spanning the last few weeks seeing how hard Tifa hit him in the temples, punch whack punch. She dragged him out by his straggly greasy hair, kicking him down the stairs and yelling that she’d kill him if she ever saw him in this Sector again. She went back to check on the girl, who had retreated behind the bar to straighten herself out. Tifa lowered the music volume just to shout at the crowd that if anyone so much as touched her friend they would get permanently banned and beaten up for good measure. They all just hailed her and clapped and whooped like a bunch of apes, so Tifa just sighed, and turned the music volume up again.

When she turned around she found herself crumbling under a mass of heat. She realized the girl was hugging her, and she could feel every curve of the girl’s body against hers, breasts mashed against her own, hipbones and lower belly intimately molding her own. Her breath caught in her throat as she allowed herself to hug the girl back.

‘I could’ve handled it, but thanks,’ she said into Tifa’s ear, and that cold breath on Tifa’s skin gave her goosebumps all over her neck.

‘I’ll let you get a few kicks in next time then,’ Tifa replied, and the girl drew back, green eyes glittering as she looked at her.

‘That’s very considerate of you,’ she said with a laugh.

Tifa’s eyes kept flicking to that unkempt hairdo, the way the stray curls kept sticking to the girl’s face, and she found herself hooking a few and pulling them away from that sweaty skin.

‘What’s your name again?’ she asked.

‘Aeris,’ said the flowergirl. Tifa nodded.

‘Have a drink with me, Aeris,’ she said. ‘We’re gonna need some Dutch courage to last the night at this rate.’

She poured them both some Condor rum, the golden liquid oozing into four shot glasses. Then she gave Aeris her two shots, they clinked, and then their heads both snapped back as they drank. Aeris coughed a few times, and Tifa laughed, patting her back.

‘How about a drinking game? Every time we have to throw some gropy geezer out, we have a shot.’

‘I won’t be standing by the time we close,’ Aeris warned, and Tifa smiled.

‘All right,’ she said. ‘Rendez-vous here when you feel like you’re gonna die, and I’ll top you up.’

The stretch from two to three am was a hassle of untangling limbs, checking the patio for abandoned drinks, and ignoring the philosopher-drunks who tried to shout politics and the Meaning of Life at her while sloshing their drinks all down themselves. Tifa tried to include as many slow Costa songs as possible so that people were less inclined to jump around and instead dance in each other’s arms – she preferred having a lot of snuggling people than aggressive ones, because it was far easier to break up snuggles that went too far that out-right fights. She would approach them, gently tell them to restrain themselves, laugh it off with them, and leave them to it again. The mood was getting heavier and heavier, couples leaving with arms all over each other, men and women staring heavily at Tifa and backing her into corners to tell her how beautiful she was, how they wanted to marry her, please, just one dance, I have no meaning in my life except coming to your bar, you’re the most beautiful woman in this city and I live on the Plate so you know, big words, bla bla bla. Aeris would be behind the counter more often to cover for her, and their bodies would brush as they got bottles, exchanged roles between feeding the washer and serving customers. Tifa lost count of the amount of times they held each other’s waists to keep each other steady as they passed, or otherwise stabilized each other, hands caressing backs and arms until she felt like she could map Aeris’ body down to the moles on her forearms and the exact diametre of her waist.

They clinked rum shots twice more at 3am, and by then the crowd had thinned to the last few tough-livered regulars. Aeris was wobbling a little as she wandered around the bar picking things up. Tifa watched her go, cleaning the bar pre-emptively, and the late night thoughts started override her usual brain functions. She could think of nothing except the smooth fabric of Aeris’ dress, how the pearls would roll against her palms, how the softness of her waist would yield when pressed. The rum was making her hot all over, it was surely just because of that, but the heat would coil like a snake whenever Aeris smiled at her. She had kept her eyes away for decency’s sake before, but after a certain hour, her body just wouldn’t listen to reason any more. So she stared outright as Aeris moved around her territory as if she’d always worked there, lovingly sweeping the tables, biceps and forearms bunching as she scrubbed at the alcohol residue. She might be slight but she had clearly worked out some, Tifa realized, and that dress flattered her deltoids so damn much.

They both ushered the last few customers out, and when Tifa had closed the doors, the bar was relatively clean thanks to their combined efforts – the floor urgently needed sweeping but apart from that, the clean-up was going to be significantly shorter. Perhaps it was the feeling of gratitude and late-night bonding that was messing with her head, but Tifa found herself forgetting her principles, or at least trying to reason against them. Why should she hold back? She hadn’t regretted all of her past mistakes with temporary work colleagues. Nights were long and she deserved more payback than just coins that seemed to bounce in and out of her till without any real profit.

She tried to keep her thoughts at bay for a few more minutes, both girls sweeping up in companionable silence as the crooning Costa jazz kept going. When Tifa came back in from taking out the trash, she found Aeris sitting on one of the freshly cleaned tables, hands in her hair as she coiled it into a more compact bun.

She watched the girl’s muscles shifting, how the front panel of her dress bunched between her thighs so that far too much bare skin was apparent. Her knees were scraped and bruised, and her calves had a slight muscular curve to them that disappeared into a pair of boots. Tifa swallowed, fire burning in her belly, and she went to the bar for one more shot of rum.

‘First time working in a bar?’ she asked as she put the shot down.

‘No, I’ve helped around as floor staff before,’ Aeris said. ‘I prefer making myself useful than just lounging around at home even if it’s benevolent work.’ She smiled one of those brilliant, pearly-white smiles again. ‘I’ve been wanting to come to your place for a while actually, it’s so cosy.’

Tifa felt her heart pounding heavily in her chest as she walked around the bar, her gaze still lingering on Aeris’ bare thighs. Aeris was looking at her face, so doubtlessly she saw where Tifa’s eyes were. Still, she did nothing to cover herself. Which made Tifa’s heart beat even harder.

Please please please let her be into girls. Please Gaia. Help me out here.

‘Do you get harassed like that every night?’ she asked, and Tifa laughed.

‘’fraid so. It comes with the publicity.’ She gestured at her miniskirt. ‘It’s all about bringing the customers in at first, and then after a while it’s all about getting them out.’

Aeris’ eyes traveled down her body.

‘I can understand that outfit being impractical,’ Aeris said. ‘Even if you look really good in it.’

Knights of the Old and all things holy, please let her mean that!

‘I don’t look half as good as you do in that dress,’ Tifa shot back. She had closed the distance now, and was standing in front of Aeris, with two full shot glasses in her hands to pretend that she wasn’t just being a creep. Which she was.

Heart pounding, she raked her eyes up and down Aeris’ body with a deliberateness that she hoped to Gaia Aeris wouldn’t mistake for simple, girl-to-girl praise. In response, Aeris’ cheeks went even redder than Tifa had seen them yet, and she smiled up to her ears. Nervous, probably, which meant she’d interpreted it correctly. Or had she?

‘Not the best work uniform either, but like you say, yeah. A girl’s got to catch attention, I mean, if she wants her business to thrive, however objectifying. Down here anyway, it’s necessary isn’t it? You just - you get used to it, you know,’ Aeris babbled.

Tifa was melting at how nervous the poor girl sounded. Still, she dared to step closer.

‘You probably draw attention whatever clothes you wear,’ she said, mimicking Aeris’ smile because she was no good at this, for Gaia’s sake. ‘In any case, it’s worked on me. I’m hiring you every weekend to do my flowers.’ And not just my flowers, you amazing, beautiful, gorgeous –

‘Are you – are you flirting with me?’ Aeris said, still smiling, and Tifa could bet that that girl’s heart was pounding just as fast as hers, seeing how out of breath they both were just idling there in front of one another.

‘Who, me? Never,’ Tifa said. Aeris laughed, surely to try and dispel the tension, and Tifa took that as a cue to hand the girl her shot glass. They clinked, both still looking at one another as they shot their drinks. Tifa put her shot glass down right next to Aeris’ hips, while Aeris kept hers in her lap, fiddling with while looking from Tifa’s eyes to her lips and up to her eyes again. Tifa pressed one hip against Aeris’ knees, asking permission.

‘Aren’t you used to women flirting with you?’ Tifa said.

‘Not really,’ Aeris said. ‘Not – not anyone that I’ve found attractive, anyway. Yeah, not that often really.’

She was babbling again and her thighs parted ever so slightly as Tifa pressed again. Then Tifa dared to slide the tips of her fingers along Aeris’ thighs, barely touching her, and goosebumps immediately pricked Aeris’ naked skin. Tifa bit her lip. There was no going back now unless Aeris forbade her. Her heart was heavy, expecting the rejection. Then Aeris’ eyes dropped to her cleavage, or perhaps the scar just above it, and then back up again, almost apologetic. Tifa dared to press again.

Aeris opened her thighs, midnight fabric dropping to expose the soft inner skin.

Tifa stepped in, wedging her hips against Aeris’ crotch, fingers lighting on Aeris’ thighs again only this time to grip the soft white flesh. Aeris’ lips were glossy with rum and Tifa’s eyes were fixed on them. No going back. Her heart was in her throat and her breaths were so short she thought she might pass out if she didn’t break the ice soon.

‘You’re really forward,’ Aeris stated, and Tifa felt the words like a stab, trying to laugh it off.

‘I’m sorry,’ she started to say, all of her hopes beginning to crumble and shame already making the tips of her ears tingle –

‘No,’ Aeris added with another of her nervous grins. ‘No, it’s fine. I like it.’

Needless to say, the rush came crashing back. Tifa was in love.

She let her hands move up from Aeris’ thighs to her waist, pressing her fingers into that dip with far more decisiveness than earlier, rolling her hips gently against Aeris’ inner thighs. She could see Aeris’ throat trembling with the rapid pulse, and she leaned forward, planting a kiss on Aeris’ neck. When she drew back Aeris lifted her chin, and they brushed lips, both of them breathing the same small bubble of air as they hesitated. Aeris smelled like flowers and rum and Tifa was so dizzy with desire. Her hands came further up, crushing the softness of Aeris’ breasts against her palms, and Aeris gasped against her lips as Tifa took liberties she would never have taken sober.

‘So impatient,’ Aeris stammered, trying for levity again, and Tifa heard a clink as the girl put down her shot glass. Then there were hands on her wrists, Aeris gently pulling her hands away from her chest and instead leading them up to her face. Obediently, Tifa cupped those rosy cheeks, both girls smiling as they stayed on the edge of the kiss, toes curling, nails digging into skin.

‘You’re just so yummy,’ Tifa murmured. Aeris giggled, lower lip bumping Tifa’s, and Tifa took the plunge, sliding her lips over that plump red mouth, biting a little, sucking a little, feeling her lower belly tightening as they progressed into a kiss. Aeris’ tongue was tangy with rum and hot against hers, and Tifa held the back of her head as Aeris kissed her back, opening her mouth, giving a small surprised sound.

‘Is this ok,’ Tifa whispered, and Aeris was going yes yes against her mouth, tongue pressing hers and insisting for more contact. Tifa was smiling so much it was a wonder she could even reciprocate with any kind of dexterity.

When Aeris relaxed her grip on her wrists, Tifa’s hands came down again, fingertips brushing over the domes of Aeris’ bosom. Aeris’ back arched in response. Tifa could feel the puckered nipples, hard under the fabric. She guessed that the bra under there must be unreinforced lace, so that the warm rounded shape she could feel was authentic rather than bra cushions. Again, there was that tightening, the rush of heat between her legs. She ground her hips against Aeris’ again, more forcefully this time, pressing their lower bodies together.

Aeris’ tongue had a deliciously sharp point, and Tifa was shivering as she let Aeris trail her tongue down her throat, biting with those small round teeth, hands still fixed on Tifa’s wrists like she was too shy to touch elsewhere. Tifa brushed Aeris’ nipples with her thumbs in response, and Aeris arched her back again and moaned against her throat with an abandon that made Tifa want to throw her down on that table without any more teasing.

‘Are the blinds all drawn?’ Tifa murmured, and Aeris checked quickly before nodding. Taking the acceptance as permission to go as far as she liked, Tifa’s hand roamed down Aeris’ belly and nestled itself between her thighs, fingers cupping the warmth there and making the flowergirl clamp her thighs around Tifa’s hips. She probed with a finger, pressing into the thin fabric, and Aeris’ grip tightened on her wrist.

‘I don’t do this very often,’ the flowergirl said. ‘I don’t do this at all, actually. I’m sorry.’

‘Do you want me to stop?’ Tifa whispered.

Aeris didn’t answer, just remained frozen there, so Tifa kissed her again, free hand pulling the fabric of Aeris’ dress out of the way so that she could brush her finger against the damp pink cotton that was revealed. Her finger slid up and down and her mind was whirring with how much she wanted this girl, how much she wanted to kiss her all over and hear her moaning again and Gaia, she had been so fucking lonely lately –

‘I did cross this bar a few times and see you working,’ Aeris murmured. ‘I remembered thinking you were really pretty even from afar. You always seemed to be capable handling anyone, anything.’

Tifa didn’t know why she was talking, and frankly she didn’t care much for it. She hooked a finger into the damp band of Aeris’ knickers, knuckles pressing against the hot, slick folds beneath and Aeris interrupted herself with a quiet moan, though it was more surprised and helpless than lustful.

‘Is this why you stayed to help?’ Tifa murmured back. ‘Because you wanted me to do this?’

‘I - ’

Tifa cut her off with an impatient, open-mouthed kiss, finger slipping up and down until she found the apex, that tiny round bud, and Aeris’ whole body tensed up.

‘Isn’t there sugary residue on your fingers?’ Aeris protested, followed by another string of apologies, like she didn’t want Tifa to stop even if she made demands. So Tifa brought her fingers up, and sucked them clean, keeping eye contact with the stammering flowergirl. Then she resumed, digging in, making tiny circles around Aeris’ aching entrance, and Aeris snaked her arms around Tifa’s shoulders, moaning into her ear.

‘I didn’t know you’d do - ’ Aeris started, and Tifa slid a finger into her. ‘ – this,’ Aeris ended in a gasp. She clenched around Tifa’s finger and Tifa bit her lip.

‘How do you like it?’ Tifa asked her, and she felt Aeris smiling against her neck.

‘All the way in. At the very back, just – press it.’

Hearing her talking like that was making Tifa ache to be touched in the same way – but she obliged, Aeris was holding onto her so tight. She pressed and pressed in circles and jabs and then with two fingers rather than one and Aeris’ thighs were clamping her so hard, shivering and covered in goosebumps. Tifa crooked her thumb so that it would press against the clit as she worked, and soon Aeris’ hips were rocking in time with her.

‘Oh, Gaia, oh, oh,’ she was murmuring, as if censoring herself, keeping her voice down though her nails digging into Tifa’s bare shoulders told all. ‘You’re really good at this,’ she said, and Tifa laughed. She persevered, and Aeris’ grip tightened, whispering keep going and they stayed locked in that position until Aeris’ moaned far loudly than before, unable to help herself surely, legs tensing and tensing and Tifa could feel her clenching around her fingers in a delicious rhythm.

‘You gorgeous thing,’ Tifa whispered, leaning to kiss her. ‘We should really go upstairs soon.’

Aeris responded for a moment before putting her hands down on the table and moving away a little. Immediately, Tifa took her hands away and rested them on Aeris’ thighs, watching to see if she had any protests to make. The heaviness came back to her chest, and the lust turned to shame as she realized she’d probably gone far too fast for someone who wasn’t used to this kind of atmosphere.

Aeris sighed, straightening her underwear and then the front of her dress, and then she moved further back so that she could sit cross-legged on the table. The two girls breathed for a moment, Tifa wanting to just leave rather than stand there waiting to be told off.

‘You ok?’ she asked, and Aeris nodded.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said again, and Tifa tch-ed. ‘I just – this is really lovely, but. I’d really like to get to know you first.’

Tifa couldn’t believe she was getting the speech that she usually made. She smiled, hoping it wouldn’t seem flippant.

‘I – get really forward after a long night and lots of hormonal people everywhere,’ she said as an apology.

‘No, like I said, it’s ok,’ Aeris said. ‘I just don’t want to take this whole thing the wrong way if you just see it as - fun.’

Both girls gazed at each other for a minute. Then Tifa put a hand on Aeris’ knee as a way of showing that she wasn’t a total cow.

‘That’s completely understandable, babe.’

‘Are you,’ Aeris started, frowning. ‘Are you, uh. Would you mind getting to know me, too?’

Tifa grinned. The girl looked positively scared, as though what she’d said would be taken as a ridiculous request. Tifa only leaned forward, kissing those plump, shiny lips again. To be honest, she had never expected to be asked, for the situation to be reversed, and she found herself quite speechless to have earned such interest.

‘Of course I would,’ she murmured.

…When she woke up the next morning, she found herself in her upstairs bedroom, artificial sunlight pouring in through the window. There was a weight around her waist and she pushed herself up onto her elbows, suddenly panicked. But when she looked down, she saw Aeris still had her dress on, her head cushioned against Tifa’s bosom as she slept, an arm around Tifa’s waist. Tifa smiled, relaxing into the pillows. Perhaps this time wouldn’t count as a total mistake.


	2. Day Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: A walk in the park  
> Pairing(s): Tifa/Rude, Tifa/Aeris  
> Timeline: Post-Crisis Core, pre-FF7
> 
> Companion piece to Day One's.

Tifa was very glad that the gift of mindreading had not been developed by Midgar’s Mako-radiated youth yet, because she would’ve been ashamed for thinking the things she was thinking with all of these slum kids around her. The park was pretty much the single destination in this part of the slums when one wanted to clear one’s head, even if that meant having to do so among throngs of children. She sighed, pushing her hands deeper into the pockets of her combat trousers, imagining what it must be like to go to some kind of AA meeting but for people with her particular problem. How would one even go about divulging that kind of shame? Hello, my name is Tifa. I’m a sex addict. I love sex more than the people I do it with. I think it may be causing a problem in my relationship, but in reality? I love sex too much to care. She thought of that excellent movie she’d gone to see at the movie-ripper’s shack in Sector 7, Nymphomaniac, by some big shot up in the Midgarian film industry. The main character had stood up at her own sex-addict meeting, saying with that deep-voice hands-at-her-sides elegance of hers, you’re all the ones with the problem, the shame, when this should be something to celebrate. You treat the desires of your own body like some kind of curse.

She’d smiled and felt her heart ballooning in her chest upon hearing that defense, that sparkling pride. But then she’d gone home to Aeris, curled up in bed and turning her back to her, and she’d felt everything inside her shriveling up again at the prospect of hurting her girlfriend. Not that Aeris didn’t respond to the advances she made, and then some. It was just… Tifa was scared. She would lay back and think on the myriad of bodies she’d known and how she missed the touch of them, the strangeness amplifying all the sensations, every scent and touch of skin unique. It had come to the point where she craved a stranger’s hand instead of her own girlfriend’s, and it stank so much of commitment issues that Tifa was beginning to hate how much of a cliché she was.

There had been one or two instances at the bar, strangers with wandering hands who she’d let a little too far into her intimacy, almost bursting with the unfamiliarity of their touch. Afterwards, she felt unclean, couldn’t stand to have Aeris so much as put a finger on her for how guilty she felt. This was no way to treat the one person who actually showed genuine interest in her. But what could she do? She didn’t trust the familiar, the ones who would say things like always and take it slow. Things had an uncanny tendency to leave her behind and Tifa felt nervous when she wasn’t a step ahead.

The streetlights were flickering, throwing oblique shadows across the park when one of them popped out. There was an alarm, sounding the children’s curfew, and as they scampered away Tifa wandered over to the swing set, easing down into one. She could handle the night terrors that crept around after curfew, so she ignored the patrollers’ compulsory calls to keep safe.

She was nonchalantly straightening her fighting sleeves when she heard heavy breathing, the click of a zippo behind her. When she turned her head, she saw someone with broad shoulders at the entrance of the park, though he was so plunged in shadow that she could hardly distinguish much else. She watched as he staggered to the bench she had been sitting on, dragging one leg behind him. Once seated she couldn’t quite see what he was doing, apart from smoking. Then there was a cloud of green light expanding around his leg, and she saw large bare hands and a bald head tilted forwards as he cast Cure on himself.

Only a Turk would carry around materia that potent down here. She tensed in her swing. Had he seen her? Of course, he was a Turk, he saw everything. Then her own depression brought her down a notch – what did she care if he had? No one seemed to make the link between her and Nibelheim, or her and Avalanche. At the very least no one had approached her about either subject yet. There was not much reason to be frightened.

She got up, wandered towards him slowly out of sheer curiosity, automatically trying to make herself appear less intimidating even though there was no way she’d intimidate this guy. It was just – he looked so oddly vulnerable.

‘Are you ok?’

The Turk looked up at her. He didn’t seem surprised to see her, which confirmed that he hadn’t overlooked her presence there.

‘Don’t worry, I’m fine,’ he called back. ‘You shouldn’t be out here by yourself at this hour.’

Tifa approached him, her eyes adjusting to the darkness so that she could begin to discern a pair of sunglasses and a clear-cut jaw. He was putting something into a plastic bag; after coming close enough to sit next to him, she realized it looked like a bloody, mashed up bullet. She looked at the dark patches on his thigh, realized the Cure must’ve pushed the bullet right out of his leg, and here he was tucking away something that might’ve killed him like it was just one more piece of evidence.

Not vulnerable at all. The nonchalance of it coupled with the crisp blue suit and unbuttoned white collar rendered Tifa completely incapable of moving away. She was intrigued. Everyone was intrigued by the Turks – everyone had either been saved by them a few times, or chased by them a few times, or witnessed them taking people down in a blaze of glory. Still, she was surprised that he wasn’t telling her to move along. Turks never had the time for casual conversation even when they decided to make themselves visible.

‘Tough assignment?’ Tifa said. He was tucking the clear plastic bag into an inside pocket, not looking at her, but he still didn’t ask her to move away.

‘Not particularly,’ he said. His deep voice, and the sheer muscular breadth of his body – he seemed familiar, somehow. Tifa could feel her body beginning to tense up as she tried to think whether he was customer, or whether he’d ever seen her in her Avalanche capacity. She rarely left the bar on missions these days, as someone had to continue funding the movement and the others hardly led lucrative lives. But perhaps the lack of missions was making her affiliation to Avalanche feel less tangible, less immediate. It didn’t mean she hadn’t been a wanted woman. She was stupid for approaching him. She stepped back, pretending awareness of his personal space.

‘Right, then I’ll leave you to it,’ she said. ‘Sorry for bothering - ’

‘It would be quite inconsiderate of me to let you leave without an escort as this time of night,’ he said. ‘If you’ll agree to wait a moment, Tifa. We can take a walk.’

Tifa froze. She had been very, very stupid.

‘No, it’s all right,’ she said, moving away, but he looked up and she froze, knowing that it would probably only take him half an effort to stop her and sit her down next to him.

‘Don’t worry,’ he said again. ‘I’m done for the night, I’ve clocked out. I’m not going to arrest you.’

‘What, you’re just genuinely concerned for the safety of a random slummer?’

The Turk pushed his sunglasses back up his nose from where they’d slid. ‘Is that so difficult to believe?’ He paused for a moment, then added quietly; ‘You’re not random. You run the Seventh Heaven, which I frequent on a monthly basis. I would hate for something to happen to the manager.’

Tifa grinned. ‘Or the bar staff, or floor staff, or bouncer, or owner.’

It may have been a trick of the light, but she could’ve sworn he smiled back at her around his cigarette.

‘I understand you’re a very busy woman,’ he stated.

How busy he meant, she couldn’t guess, but it certainly sounded like he knew she had far more duties in her life than her bar-managing ones. Again, she felt like running. Perhaps she was being paranoid, but it was usually a productive thing to experience the impulse to run when around Turks. She tried to focus on that impulse but – she was letting herself be drawn in by that expensive perfume she could smell on the man’s collar, some musky label that mixed well with the tang of bourbon. Would it really hurt that much to have a conversation with the enemy? Perhaps she could even wheedle out some information, if she tried hard enough. How much they knew about Avalanche, for instance. How much they knew about the slum gangs who acted as Avalanche’s gun suppliers, and who were completely undermining Avalanche’s reputation with their out-of-control activity. You couldn’t get anywhere in the slums without making deals with a few devils, and Barret had already voiced that he’d appreciate a helping hand in getting them out of those deals.

Still, you didn’t hand that kind of information to a goddamn Turk. Tifa wanted to slap herself. Only, being close to men with power… it always attracted a certain what if, a certain desire to gamble. Men would never stop being suckers for beautiful women, and Tifa had already capitalized on that particular flaw more than once.

She sat down as he stretched his previously punctured leg, watching with fascination as his stoic face broke into a frown.

‘I didn’t know Turks could feel pain,’ she teased, and he glanced at her.

‘I usually count on that excellent bourbon of yours to reinforce my invincibility,’ he said, and she was surprised to find herself laughing. ‘Sadly, it’s been too long since my last top up.’

Tifa reached into her trouser pocket and took out a small metal flask.

‘I’m not an alcoholic,’ she added for good measure. ‘I carry this around for spontaneous product placement.’

Rude looked at the outstretched flask as if she was holding out a lifetime Golden Saucer ticket.

‘That’s what they all say,’ he teased her right back, before taking the flask and swigging some.

‘It’s not quite bourbon,’ she added, but when he swigged twice more she decided there was no need to apologize for the Tia Maria inside it.

They talked alcohol for a while, him divulging how she had absolutely no competition up above as all the Plate bars had strict importation regulations that the slums obviously didn’t have, her mentally taking note of the foreign cocktail recipes he listed off. He briefly mentioned his own work as an occasional bouncer (though for what kind of parties, he didn’t say), empathizing with the difficulty of keeping night time crowds contained. When he mentioned an incident that had happened with a magic-wielding lunatic at the Heaven, Tifa realized that he wasn’t bullshitting her with his story of being a regular. She quizzed him to see what other incidences he’d been around to see, realizing how invisible he was capable of making himself if she hadn’t even recognized him. It made her heart pound, wondering if he’d been around for other occurrences and conversations at the Heaven that a ShinRa employee really shouldn’t be around to hear, but he didn’t mention anything incriminating. If she let herself be paranoid, it sounded like he was trying very hard to stay in the realm of innocent incidents in order to not alarm her, not even mentioning the gang affiliations of certain drunkards that he must’ve known about.

After about an hour of talking like this, far more easily than Tifa would ever had imagined possible with a man of his profession, she found herself wanting to stretch her legs. She got up, proposing the Wall Market as potential walkabout territory, and the Turk raised his eyebrows. ‘You take the Wall Market, the private trading location of the most notorious slum criminals, to be an entertainment venue?’ he asked her incredulously, and she smiled. ‘Not much of a choice down here,’ she said, ‘and you’ll find that notorious slum criminals can be very entertaining.’ The Turk smiled, no doubt thinking on what kind of quality of woman she showed herself to be with that statement, and made to stand up. He was only a head taller than her, but the breadth of his shoulders still made her feel tiny in comparison. He gave a hand out to her.

‘Before we go any further, I don’t believe I’ve introduced myself,’ he said. She obligingly put a hand in his, feeling the rugged warmth of his giant palm. ‘I’m Rude.’

‘Pleasure to meet you, Rude,’ Tifa said, and she felt a shiver of helplessness when he closed his other hand around hers, trapping it. She stared at his scraped knuckles, at the bruises around his wrists as though he’d had to wrench out of someone’s grip, or been tied up recently. She gulped, not wanting to admit to herself how that made her feel.

They wandered to the Wall Market, having come onto the subject of slum criminals, and Tifa tried to maneuver her way through the conversation as best she could without giving away confidential information. Rude divulged that he’d been on the tracks of a certain scar-faced man for quite some time, describing the scar running down the man’s neck, and Tifa recognized him straight away as Leo the materia-smuggler, one of their main suppliers. Leo took far too much money and far too many liberties, however, and was the lousiest possible partner if one was trying to come across as a do-gooder in this grisly city. She grinned as Rude described chase scenes, absurd dialogues – the criminals who did best for themselves weren’t often the ones with the most vocabulary. Then just as Tifa was deliberating on whether or not to give Rude incriminating information about the man, they saw a flashing pink neon over one of Wall Market’s most frequented restaurants, stating that it was GAMBLING NIGHT. Tifa looked up expectantly at Rude, and Rude did the same.

‘Alcohol and gambling,’ Tifa laughed. ‘Not the best interests to have in common.’

‘You must be joking,’ Rude replied, then promptly took her by the crook of her elbow and dragged her in.

There was poker on one table, a wheel of fortune over there, something that looked like blackjack at another table – they both went immediately for the poker, and Tifa found herself becoming attached if only for the common appreciation of poker. Half of the Seventh Heaven’s mortgage had been paid with gambling money, through slots and poker and dice games, so even though Tifa recognized it as a bad habit it had been too helpful to not hold a special place in her heart.

She said this to Rude when he asked for an explanation, and then turned around and said, ‘Hey, I shouldn’t need an explanation to like gambling my money. Why do you gamble yours?’ 

Rude only smiled enigmatically and said, ‘Chance is something that fascinates me. Cracking odds and such. It always helps to know how to quickly calculate odds in uncertain situations.’

Those words sounded far too ominous. Tifa found herself glancing at the blood on his trousers, the bullet hole next to the fancy pressed fold in the fabric.

‘I’m sure a lot of people at ShinRa appreciate gambling, then,’ she said, and Rude only smiled at her.

They played a few games, Rude fetching drinks for her and pretending to be only slightly curious about what was going on, his poker-face absolutely on point. He did have to take off his sunglasses though, so people wouldn’t see the cards reflected in the lenses, and Tifa was as distracted by the reveal of his eyes as if he’d taken his shirt off. It seemed oddly intimate, for some reason, for him to let her see his eyes. She found herself staring at him a little too often, losing a few rounds as she failed to concentrate on the games. Then she won a startlingly risky round, stacking up enough chips to make up for her distraction, and promptly went on a winning streak, earning a quiet admiration from her Turk partner.

The music got louder and louder as the games got raucous around them – sore losers were pretty much allowed to express themselves down here. The bouncers were hardly making an effort to contain the fights that erupted, only intervening if there was a threat to the restaurant’s tables and windows. At one point Tifa won what was probably one of their opponent’s yearly savings, and the man got up, neck bulging an angry shade of red, not even able to articulate how desperate he was. He grabbed her wrist, and before she could even whisk him away, Rude had whacked the man across the face so hard that he went twisting to the floor like a piece of candy foil. She really shouldn’t have been aroused by the sight of violence, but she found herself smiling breathlessly at the Turk, slicking back her hair as the bouncers dragged the man out. Rude only shrugged off his blazer and unbuttoned one more of his top buttons, shirt gaping over his chest like he knew why Tifa was staring at him and wanted to indulge her a little more. She found herself appreciating him even more – after the infuriatingly difficult back-and-forth seduction she’d had to lead with Aeris, it was unexpectedly gratifying to be with someone who knew exactly how to seduce her.

She got him a few drinks as a way of thanking him, and found that her legs were getting a little wobbly, while he seemed to hold his liquor particularly well. She was a bar owner, she should be able to match him, so out of some stupid and thoughtless pride she decided to match him drink for drink. He was gentlemanly enough to drag one of her glasses away from her when she knocked over her stacks of chips, and he drank her rum for her, so she hit his arm and shouted for a fight, feeling untouchable due to the alcohol. Rude only smirked at her, asking her if that’s what she really wanted.

‘I can take you down with one finger,’ he said, and she scoffed.

‘No chance of that. No chance,’ she slurred. He promptly snaked one finger around her left little finger, and twisted mercilessly. She yelped with pain, and before she knew what had happened she was down on the floor with her arm behind her back, and he was on one knee beside her.

‘Try getting up now,’ he said with a smile in his voice, and she writhed, furious to have been unmanned so easily. After pointless wriggling, she crooked her elbow in a certain way and muscle memory led her through the motions that Zangan had taught her to get out of an arm lock. She managed to get up on her knees for a second before Rude placed a finger on her forehead, making her incapable of moving forwards. She gave a few lunges but he avoided all of them, smiling at her. He was having far too much fun. Their table was cheering her on and when she hit the inside of his elbow and bowled her shoulder into his chest they slammed their fists against the green faux-velvet, chips spilling everywhere.

Eventually Rude helped her back up and they finished the last round, Tifa sweeping up the remaining players’ money and ending up against Rude. He declined, asking for them leave with their winnings before he won all of her chips off her, and she decided to play along though more because she was too tired and too turned on by all the fighting and the amount she’d just won than because she believed his threat. She was the better player, and he knew it.

They left, pockets heavy with stacks of money, and Tifa wound her arms around his when he offered an elbow. She would probably have fallen all over herself if he hadn’t been there, and she inwardly cursed at how much she’d drank simply for the sake of reputation. If he really had been down here to arrest her, he could easily just throw her over his shoulder right now and call it a day. But even that thought didn’t manage to ring any bells in her hazy mind – she just felt so comfortable around him. She wanted to give him the benefit of a doubt. So, though it was probably very stupid, she did.

She leaned against him as they made their way through the junkyard, back towards the park, talking about the game and Tifa’s deliriously lucky hands. He was like a pillar of heat and she was grateful for how close he allowed her to lean in the semi-darkness. After a while their conversation whittled down to comfortable silence, and when Tifa looked up, Rude was wearing a curiously satisfied smile.

‘I wouldn’t have thought that slummers would want to play against Turks,’ she said. ‘Or that you’d be welcome in any Wall Market estam – eblashmish – establishmish – for fuck’s sake.’

Rude chuckled. ‘We might be spooks, but a lot of slum folk are grateful that we control the criminal activity around here. Makes things safer, ultimately, even if none of them like us very much.’

‘Well, in any case, I never thought a Turk could be so much fun,’ Tifa slurred, not even caring about how sappy she sounded. ‘Not even that much of a sore loser. I’m impressed.’

‘It wouldn’t have been very gentlemanly of me to let you lose,’ he intimated. They had come to the gates of the park – the childish rigs and spiraling metal made ominous shapes in the dark.

‘You’re implying that you let me win?’ Tifa said. ‘Still chauvinistic then I see.’

‘Not me,’ Rude said. ‘I don’t know where you get these notions. Am I not walking you home right now like a good chaperone?’

‘I don’t need a chaperone,’ Tifa said. ‘I’m Tifa fucking Lockhart. I can – I can walk by myself.’

She made the mistake of letting go of his arm, and took a few steps before veering to the left as though pushed by some insubstantial wind. She turned as though to accuse him of pushing her – and tripped over herself. Her hands went out and grabbed onto the cold metal poles of one of the park’s jungle gyms, just as she felt Rude grabbing her around the waist to stop her from falling.

She held onto the red-painted metal ladder, catching her breath, and he stood in front of her as if he didn’t trust her to stand by herself. His hands were still on her waist.

‘Well,’ she said with a knowing smile. ‘This is inconvenient.’

The debate on whether or not to take advantage of the situation was quite short lived. The warmth in her gut pretty much made up her mind for her, regardless of how stupid it was to even think about fucking around with a member of ShinRa. But she didn’t really see him as one – rather, she saw him as one of her Seventh Heaven regulars, a night owl like her, someone who understood her cravings and her frustrations. He had the familiar attitude of someone who wouldn’t call her the next day, who’d simply enjoy the moment with her, which was something she had missed to a degree she had underestimated.

‘Do you still want to go home by yourself?’ Rude asked quietly. He still hadn’t removed his hands, though he wasn’t holding her lightly, as if he wasn’t quite allowing himself the indulgence. She breathed softly through her mouth, wondering. And then she unwound one hand from the ladder and reached to take off his glasses for him. He allowed her to do it, grinning at her as she slid one branch into his shirt pocket.

‘Why, are you offering to tuck me in?’ she murmured.

‘That would depend on my being welcome past your threshold,’ he said.

‘Hmm, I don’t know,’ Tifa said with a smirk. ‘I guess nobody should welcome a Turk past their threshold.’ And especially not her, when her threshold protected a basement full of Avalanche stuff that she really shouldn’t be putting in danger for the sake of late-night madness. But, he had made no comment that would indicate that he knew her affiliations – she wanted to drop the paranoia just for one night, it all felt so right, so perfect.

‘You’re not just nobody, though, are you Tifa?’ Rude murmured. That should’ve warned her, should’ve made all of the alarms go off in her mind, but instead she was distracted by how his fingers dug into her waist a little harder. And then his large palms were pressing against her body and she felt herself melting in his grip.

He leaned in and the smell of bourbon made her even dizzier as he tilted his head, heavy-lidded eyes aimed straight at her mouth.

‘You should know better than to hit on a drunk,’ Tifa reminded him, and he smiled.

‘So should you.’

He was flirting just as outrageously as she was and she appreciated the lack of awkwardness and general tact just so damn much. When he kissed her she felt her knees buckling, hands gripping the metal rungs above her head to hold her up. Noticing this, he pressed her back against the bars so that she wasn’t going anywhere, one arm locked around her waist, the other running along her beltline, looking for an entrance into her tucked shirt. The strength of his hold was so different to the way Aeris held her, so overpowering, and though it should’ve scared her it only made her want him more. 

‘This is such an obvious ruse,’ she said against his lips. ‘You’re going to cuff me to this ladder when you’re done kissing me.’

‘Am I?’ he said, then his free hand reached for his own belt instead and unclipped a pair of handcuffs, holding them up with one thumb. ‘Bet you’d like that.’

‘Not in a million years,’ she lied, and then she pushed against him. It was more a request than a demand, as he could easily continue to crush her with the way they were positioned. Instead, he let her push him away, grab fistfuls of his shirt and spin him around, crushing his back against the red ladder instead. His blazer fell to the floor at their feet, and she grinned up at him.

‘Ooh,’ he said in mock-fear, and she pressed her knuckles harder against his perfectly rounded pecs. Then she reached for the handcuffs but he held them up high above their heads – after a few more jumps, she managed to grab one cuff and wrench it out of his grip. He let her pin one of his arms to a higher rung, and cuff his wrist there, running through the cinches with the satisfying sound of rolling metal. As she worked he locked his free arm around her waist so that there would be no chance of her escaping and leaving him there.

‘Wouldn’t look too good on your work record if you had to call your partner to come and free you, would it?’ Tifa smirked.

‘No, it really wouldn’t,’ he murmured in that deep, seductive tone of his, and she found herself kissing him again, letting him press her against him in that steely grip, thighs and stomach and breasts crushed against the hard length of his own body. She pressed a thigh between his legs and pulled his shirt out of his tucked beltline, and he gave a deliciously guttural groan in response. She could feel how hard he was through the expensive fabric of his suit trousers. And how big he was, too. Gaia. She was out of breath and in so much fucking trouble.

‘Tifa,’ he murmured against her lips as her hands dove under his shirt, roaming up the hard plain of his abs. She could feel the crags between each muscle, how well-defined they must be to look at, and how they clenched and shifted as he moved.

‘Yeah?’ she breathed.

His free hand dug into the beltline of her combat trousers, easily lifting the elastic fabric off her and replacing it by the warm weight of his hand. In just one move he slid his fingers under the thin strap of her thong, and dug into the firm flesh of her glutes. His hand took up a whole cheek and she bit her teeth at how amazingly different that rough, demanding grip felt.

‘You know there are cameras around here?’ he said.

‘Yeah. So?’

‘We could get fined for exhibitionism.’

‘Don’t you mean you’re scared your department could see the footage and give you trouble for groping an innocent slumgirl?’

Rude grinned, and leaned in to kiss her, filling her mouth with his tongue and making all of the thoughts fall out of her head as she gave in to the heat of the embrace. She felt his free hand sliding up out of her trousers and traveling up her side, brushing the side of her breast, and she was too busy enjoying the kiss to realize where that hand went before she heard a click. Then he had two free hands travelling down to the backs of her thighs and before she knew it, he’d lifted her up against him, her legs coming around his waist automatically, feet fitting against metal rungs to support her as he pressed her against his bulging crotch. The cuffs were swinging on one of his wrists, banging against the metal rungs as he shifted his hold, chin raised as he tried not to break the kiss.

‘I could already lose my job for letting you cuff me,’ he intimated.

‘I’m sure you’re allowed to do what you want with your cuffs when you’re off the clock.’

‘Well. I’ve certainly never used them in an informal capacity before now.’

‘Oh, you dirty liar.’

They fooled around for a moment longer, Tifa appreciating the ease with which he handled her, before the pangs of guilt started being frequent enough for her to start trying to compromise. They couldn’t stay out here, but she couldn’t lead him into the bar either without stupidly endangering her crew… granted, there were countless other places to be intimate in the slums, but she was too tired not to want her bed. The back door leading to the second storey of the Seventh was the best escape she could think of – he couldn’t enter the bar through her flat, and he’d have to have a warrant to search it anyway, wouldn’t he? Besides, he’d been in there plenty and never taken the liberty to snoop around. And, Aeris wouldn’t be adverse to this kind of addition, surely. She knew nothing about Avalanche, so what would she have against a Turk, if she even noticed that he was one? They’d already talked about including people, sometimes giggling about pretty customers who stayed a bit too long and mentioned the possibility of them letting someone else into their bed. 

She decided on risking Aeris and the comfortable, comfortable foam mattress she’d scavenged and set up beautifully in her room.

Taking Rude by the hand once he’d set her down, she led him away from the park and through the junkyard roads until they’d reached Sector 7. He seemed a little reticent upon the mention of her girlfriend, not saying much, and once she was fumbling for her keys next to the back door, he stood there with his blazer thrown over his shoulder and an eye on the lit window up above.

‘Are you sure she’ll be all right with this?’ he asked.

‘She’ll be fine, don’t worry,’ Tifa said.

‘Tifa,’ he said in that deep baritone of his. ‘I’d be more than happy just spending the night with you.’

He said it with a strange longing. Tifa looked up at him, at how intensely he was staring down at her. His fingers played on the small of her back, and she leaned into him unconsciously.

‘Was this all part of some kind of plan?’ she teased him. ‘Have you always waited for an occasion to flirt with the barkeep?’

Rude grinned. ‘That’s classified.’

Tifa laughed, and then fitted her key in the door. ‘I can’t, I’m sorry. I’m with someone, so I can’t just leave her out.’

They made their way up the rickety staircase, and once up on the landing, Tifa saw that the bedroom door was ajar. As she pulled Rude towards it, Aeris appeared in the doorway, wearing her usual pink satin nightie. When she saw Rude she grabbed a nightgown off the door hooks and quickly pulled it around herself.

‘Tifa?’ she asked in a tired voice. ‘What - ? What’s going on? I was worried about you. It’s four in the morning.’

Tifa only launched herself at her girlfriend, kissing her full on the lips while tugging Rude behind her. Aeris took a step back, groaning with surprise.

‘What in Gaia’s name are you doing?’

‘Indulging you,’ Tifa purred. She pulled Rude into the bedroom, and he resisted her as he stepped through the doorway, standing there as she turned to introduce them.

‘I met thish lovely gentleman tonight,’ Tifa slurred, gesturing at Rude. ‘Really nice guy. He’s a Seventh Heaven regular.’

Rude and Aeris stared at each other, and Tifa couldn’t quite decipher Aeris’ expression. Surprise, surely. Rude was looking practically scared, which was particularly odd.

‘We’ve, uh,’ Rude said. ‘We’ve met before.’

‘Really?’ Tifa said, and Aeris shook her head, smiling one of those nervous smiles of hers.

‘Yeah, yeah. He buys flowers from me sometimes,’ she said, eyes burning into Rude’s as if that was the story she wanted him to acknowledge.

Tifa was too far gone into making this happen to really care whether the two had history. Good. If they did there was probably more chances of them having chemistry, if anything. She stroked Rude’s ruffled shirt with one hand, and cupped Aeris’ face with the other.

‘Are we doing this, then?’ she said, eyes glittering with anticipation as she willed Aeris to allow her this one treat. Then she turned and licked Rude’s lower lip, turned again and did the same to Aeris. Rude stepped closer as she did so, hands coming to her waist, and she knew at least one of them was too far gone to say no.

Aeris looked a little wounded at first, but the more Tifa insisted, the more she relaxed in Tifa’s hold. The three of them progressively fell onto the mattress, which was on the floor, and Rude and Aeris both focused all of their attentions on Tifa, not even looking at each other. Tifa was on her back at one point, Rude kneeling between her legs and making quick work of her underwear, while Aeris was lying beside her nuzzling her throat and sliding her tiny hands under her top.

‘Are you ok with this, are you sure?’ Tifa asked her in a murmur, and Aeris smiled wanly at her, nodding and resting her forehead against hers. Then Rude leaned down between Tifa’s thighs and pressed his hot open mouth over her bare, shaved lips and she gasped, holding Aeris against her.

‘Thank you for doing this for me,’ she told Aeris, who only smiled again, though it looked slightly sad this time. Then she kissed Tifa’s mouth and Tifa held the girl’s head, digging her fingers into those long chestnut curls, groaning every time Rude’s tongue would slide up and down.

Both girls were concentrating on each other as Rude prepared himself, having the decency to use his own protection which was something Tifa wasn’t used to, coming from a man at least. She thought she might get up into a different position than just lying on her back, perhaps to spice things up a bit as a threesome was supposed to be something exotic – but Aeris didn’t seem like she would move from where she was, or even take off her nightie for that matter. Even when it would ride up her thighs, she’d self-consciously pull it back down again. So Tifa just held onto her around the shoulders while Rude angled himself between her thighs. When he penetrated her she cried out into Aeris’ ear, and Aeris’ whispered to her that she was beautiful, and how much Aeris loved her, and Gaia, Tifa was in paradise.

At one point Rude leaned over them, planting one hand next to Tifa’s head for support, the other tentatively sliding up Tifa’s body until it came to her breasts. His fingers brushed across Aeris’, and Aeris drew her hand back immediately, both of them looking at each other with again that strange hesitancy. Tifa would’ve chalked it up to shyness, if Aeris had been anything but shy once sunken into a proper sexual context. But, there was too much going on for her to think on that – Aeris immediately brought the injurious hand down to massage Tifa’s clit in just the way she liked, and Tifa closed her eyes, focusing on the sensations, enjoying the treat that both of these wonderful people were allowing her.

They both teased her and tormented her until she reached climax, holding Aeris’ shoulders and Rude’s arm and the cushions and howling far too loud. Once she came down all three of them could hear wolf-whistling and clapping from outside the flimsy single-glazing windows, and Aeris laughed. Rude smiled down at her, too, and for a moment it felt like all three of them were in a bubble of pure bliss.

But then Rude withdrew, and knelt there catching his breath and taking off the prophylactic while the girls cuddled. Tifa would’ve asked him what he was doing if she had any breath or voice to do so. Instead she just shot glances at him over Aeris’ head, watching as he put his socks on and then his trousers and belt, lacing his lacquered shoes back on with his back to both girls.

‘You going somewhere?’ she said breathlessly, clearly without much determination to stop him if he did.

‘Why, are you inviting me to sleep here?’ Rude said with a smirk. Tifa glanced at Aeris, who was staring into space. Probably not the best idea.

‘You’ve probably got a fancy pad up above, haven’t you,’ Tifa said, attempting to get him to leave without sounding too nasty about it. ‘I wouldn’t hold it against you if you’d rather sleep up there.’

Rude turned around to gaze at her with surprising tenderness. He’d understood her meaning perfectly well, and again she was grateful for how well he could read between the lines, and respond appropriately.

‘You know, it’s cruel to wave a treat under someone’s nose, only to take it away again,’ he teased her – he had almost finished buttoning up his shirt. ‘Anyway. You ladies look like you don’t particularly need me, so. I’ll take my cue.’

Aeris smiled faintly at that.

‘I’ll walk you out,’ she said, untangling herself from Tifa’s arms and covering her shoulders again with the nightgown.

Tifa waited for the pair of them to have left the room before getting up on trembling legs and going to the door. The place was far too small for any privacy, so she didn’t have to strain her ears particularly hard to hear their conversation;

‘I deeply apologize,’ Rude was muttering as they made for the stairs. ‘I had no idea it would be you.’

‘Never really thought I’d do something like that with you, either,’ Aeris said. ‘It’s alright. I know how much it meant to her – and to you.’

Tifa frowned at this. Rude was silent for a while.

‘I’m guessing this earns me brownie points?’ Aeris said.

‘I can pull some strings to get you some privacy for the next few weeks.’

‘Seriously? I want six months, at least. And give Elmyra 25% more.’

‘Let’s not be ridiculous. I can bribe Reno out of surveillance duty, but not our boss, so it will only be partial privacy. And I will see about Elmyra, I believe a 10% raise has been mentioned recently.’

‘No, come on! At least three months. Can’t a girl enjoy her first relationship in peace?’

‘I will try my best, but Aeris… your leverage isn’t exactly solid. It would hurt both my career and my boss if this was known, I agree, but falsifying months of reports is a far worse offense. I’m doing this as a favour to you, do you understand?’

They were at the front door by now. Tifa dared to tiptoe out on the landing, frowning as she listened to this incomprehensible exchange.

‘Thank you, Rude,’ Aeris said in a small, exhausted voice.

‘Take good care of yourself,’ Rude replied. ‘Enjoy your relationship.’

‘Hope you’re not too jealous,’ Aeris said.

‘A man can live with a broken heart,’ Rude said jokingly, and then she shut the door on him.

When Aeris came back into the bedroom, Tifa had so many questions brimming inside her that she could only stare open-mouthed like an idiot.

‘What - ?’ she started, but Aeris interrupted her, green eyes deadly;

‘You don’t get to drag a Turk into this house, expect me to welcome him, and only afterwards question me about how I know him,’ she said. ‘I love you, I did this for you because I want to make you happy. But if you aren’t even going to bother asking what I think before pushing me into these kinds of situations, then don’t expect me to let you in.’

With that, she plopped down onto the mattress, wrapped herself up in the entire duvet, and turned her back to Tifa. Tifa could only stand there, a finger pointed up at the sky as all of the questions melted out in one long sigh. The only thing she could really do was lay down behind Aeris, heart pounding with guilt and arousal and misery, and tuck herself around Aeris in one big spoon, arm coming around the warm duvet lump.

‘I’m really sorry,’ she mumbled against Aeris’ hair. ‘I’m really, really sorry.’

‘Just - let me get some sleep, woman,’ Aeris muttered back. But then she stuck a hand out of the duvet, pulling Tifa’s arm further around her, and Tifa snuggled closer, hoping against hope that she hadn’t broken everything beyond repair.


	3. Day Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Against the wall  
> Pairing(s): Sephiroth/Genesis  
> Timeline: Pre-Crisis Core

The gala was gigantic – chandeliers dripping from the ceiling of the President’s manor, shareholders and clients from around the world sitting around tables in haute-couture and five-figure gil suits. These were the people that owned ShinRa’s weapons industry, gathering for a four-day prolonged weekend to indulge in networking, talks on recent research, live screening of First Class Soldiers testing experimental technologies. Essentially, they were the world’s richest gathering under the marble roof of the President’s priceless home. Once a year, every year. 

And Sephiroth hated it. 

He hated it because he a. had to make himself available to show Shinra’s assets off like some geisha girl holding up an old man’s golden testicles for all to examine, b. had to give control of whatever internationally crucial mission he was on to Second Class buffoons who he didn’t trust to stick to the guidelines (so he made guidelines for the guidelines and resisted the temptation to give them a picture-brochure to be sure), c. the conversational level was very much the hoity-toitiest pack of nonsense that he’d ever heard – who used that kind of language except people who profited off of confusing everyone? (Apart from Genesis, obviously) and d. oh, d. it was his fucking birthday this time around and they had done it one purpose, because that meant the Sunday was Sephiroth Celebration Day and everyone was kissing his arse left right and centre and however much he tried to avoid it, well, he couldn’t, because he was in the goddamned spotlight, wasn’t he?

The whole day had been, oh, look at these Sephiroth baby pictures blown up to giant proportions on the dancing-hall-cum-dining-room wall, like his bald baby face was some meteor crashing through the damn building, and after that, charts showing his evolution, the success of the ‘gene therapy’ everyone applauded Hojo for developing, videos of his missions, lectures on the cultural histories of ‘haha primitives’ around the world that he had come along and ruined which was for some reason applauded too. And then, just before dinner, once everyone was back from wherever the fuck rich and useless people fuck off to, he had to give a goddamned speech.  
He was against the cool marble wall of one of the manor’s more secluded corridors – the black scuffles along the lower portions of the walls clearly indicated this was the territory of the staff and maids with their bustling trolleys. The glow of the great dining hall stopped short at the entrance of the corridor, so that he was in relative darkness, the servants tending to the food working in the opposite wing of the building tonight. Sephiroth had the paper in his hand as he mouthed the words to himself, a warm welcome you esteemed shitheads, to the manor of the most ridiculous man you have ever invested in, well done and a big round of applause to you all for abandoning the plight of countries all around the world who have lost their names and peoples and cultures because you couldn’t piss your money out of the right window, et cetera. We at ShinRammmff – he opened his eyes, a sweet gelatinous glob having pressed against his mouth.

A pair of sharp blue eyes was floating in front of him, and once he’d swallowed what tasted like caramel cheesecake, a pair of lips slipped over his now-sugary mouth.

‘I was looking for you, geisha girl,’ Genesis purred.

Sephiroth scowled. ‘Get out of my face Gen. I need to get this right.’

Genesis glanced down at the paper. ‘Is that the one I edited for you? I hope it is – ’

‘What difference does it make? They’re all going to jack off to my image regardless of whether I misuse commas and stress the wrong syllables.' 

Genesis laughed. ‘Well, I for one would be put off by bad grammar.’

Sephiroth smirked at his friend. ‘You wouldn’t be put off by anything.’

Genesis was still grinning impishly at him, and he wondered for a moment what plans the man had in that conniving little head of his. He’d behaved relatively well throughout the gala, though he’d tease Sephiroth endlessly when either of them had to present one of the events, or host one of the lectures. There would be inside jokes of moderate sophistication and then Genesis-style primary school level wordplay (‘we will be joining you _fuck-off-ee_ later, perhaps _fuck-ake_ if they spare some’), but no major humiliation just yet. Genesis had, however, hinted that they hadn’t even started crossing off the rooms in this manor in terms of places they’d ‘claimed’ (read: places they’d fucked in), and that they really should get started this year. They didn’t get much access to the entirety of the manor normally, and technically they had only been intimate since that time in the Virtual Reality Simulator six months ago - the time that Sephiroth tried not to think about if he didn’t want his trousers to get uncomfortable at inopportune moments. But Sephiroth guessed that Genesis had a thing for stealing off while important people were talking, and that he wouldn’t be the first that Genesis would drag into an empty room during this particular event.

Ah. Perhaps that was why Genesis looked so amused and was standing so close to him. Sephiroth’s eyes narrowed.

‘Genesis. No.’

Genesis apparently took that as a yes please, bringing his hands on to Sephiroth’s fancy belt, face far too close to Sephiroth’s. Sephiroth just sighed.

‘Look, I don’t care who you fucked in the corridors at last year’s gala – ’

‘It wasn’t corridors, it was the labyrinth in the garden,’ Genesis corrected him with his trademark winning smile. Sephiroth thought he might punch him. 

‘I don’t care! I don’t care. Just let me work on this, I need to be out there in thirty minutes.’

‘I’m not stopping you,’ Genesis purred, slinking next to Sephiroth on the wall and trailing a hand down his thigh. Sephiroth twitched his leg, throwing the hand off. 

‘Seriously,’ he whispered. 

‘Fine.’

For a blessed moment Genesis left him alone, sitting on the floor next to him and eating the remainder of the cheesecake plate he’d put there. Sephiroth concentrated on the lines, trying to calm his heartbeat when he heard the President’s voice introducing this particular dinner – there would be such and such fancy food whose recipe names were in a language he’d helped eradicate, there would be this philharmonic orchestra from halfway around the world, and there was something that felt really nice, really nice, and a warm weight and a zipping sound, and Sephiroth groaned as he stood there with his head against the wall, eyes closed, oblivious. What was that? He looked down, opened his eyes, and realized Genesis was kneeling in front of him in the semi-darkness, hands on his open trousers, looking up at him before pressing his lips against his pants again.

‘Are you insane?’ Sephiroth whispered. He put his hand on top of Genesis’ warm red hair as if to pull the man away, but then his hand kind of sat there as Genesis nipped at the head of his cock through the fabric. Sephiroth tilted his head back again with a tiny groan. ‘Gaia, you can’t do this to me. Not now.’

He tensed his fingers on Genesis’ hair and Genesis, like the good masochist that he was, made an appreciative little sound and persevered, pressing his tongue against the growing outline of Sephiroth’s cock. 

‘Get off me, I’m serious,’ Sephiroth whispered a little louder, pulling at Genesis’ hair this time, but then the man’s fingers slipped into the hem of his pants and pulled them down just a notch, uncovering the rosy pink head underneath. Genesis closed his mouth around it immediately and Sephiroth caught the moan in his throat before the whole damn audience just outside this corridor would hear it. There weren’t even any doors between the corridor and the dining hall, just the angle shielding them from the crowd – anyone could walk through here at any moment. 

‘Do you want to cause a scandal?’ Sephiroth muttered, and Genesis glanced up at him, eyes glowing. Of course he wanted to. Stupid question.

He gave Sephiroth’s now fully erect cock a tiny kiss before saying, ‘Neither of us would even get fired if we got caught. Who cares?’

‘You mean I wouldn’t get fired. I’m the victim, here,’ Sephiroth murmured. ‘Who knows what would happen to you?’

Genesis’ squeezed his erection a little too hard as retribution and Sephiroth bit his lip, watching in fascination as the head of his cock bulged and went slightly purple around the edges. Then it disappeared into Genesis’ mouth again and he rolled his head back against the wall, feeling the adrenaline pumping through him and making him giddy.  
He could still hear the president talking, speech interrupted every now and then by applause, and he could hear his own name coming up a lot more often now, closing in on the subject of his speech. 

‘… terrorism is sadly a very real issue, as you all know, and with the combined departments of Soldier and the Turks, we may well have found the best assets to contain and predict wherever our enemies will strike next – or whoever they will strike next. Unpredictability is a problem to solve like any other, and we have the tools and the great minds to solve it. First, intelligence is courageously obtained and processed, information from around the world being swallowed into the system…’  
Genesis swallowed Sephiroth’s cock down to the hilt, eyes squeezing shut, and Sephiroth had to clamp a hand over his own mouth so the president’s speech wouldn’t be interrupted by a shameless _uuughh_ , as though someone got greatly excited by the mention of terrorism. It was a subject he was thoroughly interested in, but not that much.

‘… and then, negotiation or eradication of the problem happens. Oftentimes it is so swiftly dealt with that press doesn’t have the time to follow – and often, that is for the best. Some say the best weapon against fear is fear – and while we can agree that our Soldier program has allowed for fearfully strong combatants, our only objective is to terrorize the enemy. Not the people. Here at ShinRa Inc, we value the people’s peace of mind more than anything – let our excellent terror-fighting military departments do the worrying for you.’

There was clap-clap-clapping as the audience lapped up the President’s vapidities and Genesis took that moment to stand up and kiss Sephiroth, his mouth tangy with the taste of precum.

‘Are you done?’ Sephiroth whispered angrily, though the way Genesis ground his belly against his raging erection really wasn’t helping his case.

‘Nowhere near,’ Genesis whispered back, still with that shit-eating grin of his. Then before Sephiroth knew what was happening, Genesis had taken him by the hips and spun him around, pressing him against the wall with a forearm against his shoulder blades.

‘You can’t,’ Sephiroth said a little too loud, and Genesis shhhed him before yanking his loose trousers and pants down lower so that his arse was as bare as a babe’s and hardly ten metres away from the nearest dining table in the hall ahead. Genesis pummeled his flesh like he was kneading dough, the man practically purring at the sight of his General’s generously rounded backside and Sephiroth knocked his forehead against the wall with a sigh of frustration. Lashing out to free himself would probably mean upsetting his friend, and thus lead to exaggerated antics and falling around on the floor and generally attracting attention to themselves out of petty revenge, which was Genesis’ favourite game. So he couldn’t move – and a part of him absolutely didn’t want to move either, but that only aggravated him more. He loved submitting but hated admitting it, and Genesis knew that about him all too well.

‘I will tear you apart,’ Sephiroth growled.

‘I believe I’m about to do that,’ Genesis retaliated. 

The adrenaline was making him light-headed by now, and he caught himself smiling instead as he rocked his forehead against the wall. The kneading hand disappeared for a few seconds, only to appear again and part Sephiroth’s cheeks, one finger probing at his entrance and lubricating it with saliva.

‘I’m on in five minutes, you deranged – ’ Sephiroth’s words warped into a moan as Genesis sank two fingers into him, and he tensed up, hands flattening against the wall. Genesis shushed him again – the applause was thinning, and that moan had to have been audible at least for the nearest table. Genesis decided to release the pressure against Sephiroth’s upper back, apparently trusting the man to stay put as he reached around to wrap his free hand around Sephiroth’s erection. Sephiroth thought he would bite right through his lip as he tried to contain himself, not even thinking about escaping now. 

‘As a treat to our most trusted friends, Sephiroth himself will come where I stand and divulge exclusive reports about the terrorist cells he has single-handedly dealt with over the past few years, and the potential terrors we as a society might have had to suffer, were it not for his valiant efforts. These stories have never hit the media, and we at ShinRa trust that you, treasured and privileged few, will keep these exclusive stories in the family.’

Genesis chose that second of silence to ram his cock right in, and Sephiroth bit through his lower lip, blood covering his teeth and chin as he caught the moan in his throat with great difficulty. He pressed his forehead harder against the wall, back arched so his arse met Genesis’ hips at a better angle, and he held onto the wall for dear life. It hurt like hell but he was anticipating that moment, that relaxation where the amount of pain would flip into the same amounts of pleasure. 

‘You have no idea what I’m going to do to you after this,’ Sephiroth growled.

‘Let’s keep it that way. You know I love surprises,’ Genesis murmured in his ear, before thrusting again, one hand on Sephiroth’s hip and the other jacking him off.

‘Well I don’t, ’ Sephiroth snarled, but it was useless – he could feel himself melting as Genesis touched him in exactly the right ways and places, and he gasped as Genesis thrust again without there being any pain at all. Quite the contrary in fact. His hands balled into fists against the wall, eyes flickering shut. The momentum of Genesis’ hand on his cock was just right, and the danger of the situation only made his arousal grow faster – he could already feel the promise of release rushing through him in waves, making him want to moan like an animal. 

‘Without any further ado…’ the President started saying, and immediately Genesis withdrew, slipping out of him and making Sephiroth fall against the wall as the sudden coldness and pain speared through him. ‘Let me make way for ShinRa’s favourite…’ Sephiroth’s mind was whirring. He turned around, staggering a little and pressing his back against the wall as he automatically reached for his gaping beltline and pulled his trousers back up. Genesis had already buttoned up and was slicking back his hair, cheeks flushed. Sephiroth wanted to add some more red to that smug face.

‘You think you can just do whatever you want,’ Sephiroth muttered, enraged and confused and wanting more than anything to leave this goddamned dinner party behind and drag Genesis away into a room somewhere so that he could reciprocate properly.

Genesis just smiled at him. ‘Of course I can.’ Then he stepped up while Sephiroth was frantically tucking his expensive shirt back into his trousers, and gave Sephiroth a tender, loving kiss, tongue lapping up the blood that stained his mouth, hands cupping his face. Oh, Sephiroth was going to murder him – 

‘… our birthday boy, Sephiroth!’

There was a round of applause as expectant heads probably turned and searched for him. Sephiroth, panting and sweaty and aching so much that it felt like Genesis was still inside him, tried to stand up straight. Genesis took a few steps back, observing his handiwork – the General looked ruffled, but not too much. Only enough for the both of them to be reminded of what had just happened.

Sephiroth picked up his speech from where it had drifted on the floor, and then loomed over Genesis, eyes sparking.

‘If you stick around after I’m done with my speech, not even your Goddess will be able to save you,’ he hissed, and Genesis only gave him another of his loving smiles.

‘Looking forward to it,’ he murmured. 

Sephiroth was looking straight ahead of him as he marched into the hall like it was some Wutain shelter he had just bombed to shreds. He could feel everyone’s eyes on him, but rather than it feeling like admiration, he knew they could see the signs too, the badly tucked shirt, the film of sweat above his lip, the slight bulge in his trousers that wouldn’t go down, the red mark on his forehead where he’d pressed against the wall. He tried to shut them out, to pretend it was just a simulation – it was the only way he could handle situations like this. 

He got to the stage, putting his speech on the pedestal and fixing the mic so that he wouldn’t have to lean down to talk into it. And while he did so, the crowd erupted into the fucking Happy Birthday song of all things – they had already sang it to him when he’d appeared at lunch, so there was no need to do it again. Still, Sephiroth forced a smile, nodding at all of these people and trying to make a sweeping gesture so they’d feel like he had personally looked at all of them. And then he saw the redheaded figure leaning against the far wall in the white shirt and red trousers, singing at him too, and he forgot to talk for a moment. All of his body throbbed as he looked at those glowing blue eyes, that slender physique, and he wanted nothing more than to step down again and push that man right up against a wall, too.

But, duties first. 

‘Thank you so much,’ he said into the mic, eyes flicking down to his speech. ‘Thank you…’


End file.
